The Brilliant Disaster

Publisher's Summary

A remarkably gripping account of America's Bay of Pigs crisis, drawing on long-hidden CIA documents and delivering, as never before, the vivid truth - and consequences - of five pivotal days in April 1961. The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event reverberating even today. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself. The Cuban-born invaders were trained by CIA officers, supplied with American matériel, and shadowed by the U.S. Navy. Landing by sea with fighter-plane support, they hoped to establish a military beachhead and spark a counterrevolution against Fidel Castro’s regime. The gambit was a stupendous failure, resulting in the death or imprisonment of more than a thousand men. Now, journalist Jim Rasenberger takes a closer look at this darkly fascinating incident in American history. At the heart of the crisis stood President Kennedy, and Rasenberger traces what Kennedy knew, thought, and said as events unfolded. He examines whether Kennedy was manipulated by the CIA into approving a plan that would ultimately involve the American military. He also draws compelling portraits of the other figures who played key roles in the drama, including Fidel Castro. Written with elegant clarity and narrative verve, The Brilliant Disaster is the most complete account of this event to date, providing not only a fast-paced chronicle of the disaster but an analysis of how it occurred—a question as relevant today as then—and how it profoundly altered the course of modern American history.

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US Government Perspective

This story is told almost exclusively from the perspective of high level members of the US government. There is little input from Cuban exiles or anyone who fought on the side of the Cuban government. It is not badly written but does feel very limited in its scope.

Most literate Americans with a historical sense are at best vaguely familiar with "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" but not many have anything but a superficial understanding of what it was about or what its significance is. Jim Rasenberger's history is perfect for the lay reader who has a fairly clear picture of the larger context of the Cold War but who seeks to fill the knowledge gap. The narrative is clear and concise and free of heavy-handed authorial conjectures slanted toward a particular political viewpoint.